General similarities with paganism:

As we have seen, the common thread among most of these pagan sects is their worship of the sun as their deity and their selection of the winter solstice (25th of December) as the time of the birth of their supreme god. The winter solstice is the time of year when the sun would reach it's last stage of decline and once again begin to rise and become "re-born." This rise would continue until day and night become equal in length. At this point, the god of the sun would appear to be at a stand off with the "prince of darkness." This would occur at the vernal equinox, or Easter. This situation, however, would not last for long, as the god of the sun would triumph after Easter, and days would become longer than nights.

We notice that the church too received divine "inspiration" that Jesus (pbuh) was born on the 25th of December, and also that he too "triumphed over the prince of darkness" on Easter day, just as the pagan gods of the Greeks and Romans had done centuries before. Let us have a brief look at the popular beliefs of the pagan Gentiles who would later take it upon themselves to spread "Jesus'" religion to the world:
 

Attis:

The pagan god Attis was the son of the virgin Nana. He was the "savior" and "only begotten son." His blood was believed to have renewed the fertility of the earth. As such, he was a symbol of immortality. He was believed to have died on March 24th and been resurrected shortly thereafter. Sacramental meals and baptism of blood were features of his church.
 

Adonis or Tammuz:

He was born of a virgin and was the "savior" of Syria. He died in redemption for mankind and was later resurrected in the spring.
 

Dionysus or Bacchus:

He was the "only begotten son" of Jupiter, the king of the gods of the Romans and the lord of life and death (For the Greeks, his father was the almighty Zeus). He was named the god of wine and revelry. Dionysus died at the hands of the Titans, who tore him apart, roasted the pieces, and began to eat them. At that point Zeus intervened, saved some of the pieces, and had Apollo bury them at Delphi. There, it was believed, Dionysus arose from the dead He said to mankind "It is I who guide you; it is I who protect you, and who save you; I am Alpha and Omega." He was slain for redeeming humanity and was called "the slain one," "the sin bearer," and "the redeemer." In celebrating his festival, his worshippers would observe the sparagmos: the tearing apart of a live animal, the eating of its flesh, and the drinking of its blood; participants believed they were in fact partaking of the god's body and blood. Plays were also staged at these festivals. Wine had a central place at his festivals. Does any of this sound familiar?
 

Bel or Baal:

He was the sun god of Babylon. The story of his life and his passion play bears a tremendous resemblance to that given to Jesus (pbuh) in our current Gospels. Called the lord of the universe, he was killed by monsters but restored to life. His death and resurrection were celebrated annually as a part of Canaanite fertility rituals.
 

Osiris:

He was the Egyptian's god of the dead and the underworld, born of the "virgin of the world" on the 29th of December. He preached gentleness and peace. Wine and corn were both his discoveries. He was betrayed by Typhen, slain and dismembered. He remained in hell for two or three days and three nights. He would be the judge of mankind in a future life.
 

Mithras or Mithra

He was the sun god of the Persians and the son of a virgin. He was born on the 25th of December. Christmas and Easter were two of the most important festivals of his church. His worshipers observed baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist supper at which time they would partake of their "god" in the form of bread and wine.
 

Krishna:

The Indian god Krishna too bears a tremendous resemblance to Jesus (pbuh) in the story of his mission and his divinity. He was the incarnation of the Indian's supreme god Vishnu (the preserver and protector of the world) in the womb of Devaki. Upon his birth, a great chorus of angles proclaimed "In the delivery of this favored woman, nature shall have cause to exalt." His birth was indicated by a star in heaven. Although of royal blood, he was born in a cave. He was presented with gifts of sandalwood and perfumes. His foster father was told to flee and hide him lest king Kansa might take his life. King Kansa had ordered all male infants born on that night to be slain. One of his first miracles was the healing of a leper. He was later slain and this resulted in an eclipse of the sun and a black circle forming around the moon. Spirits were seen on all sides and he descended into hell, rose again, and ascended into heaven with many people being witnesses to his bodily accent. He will have a "second coming" in the future which his followers continue await. There are countless other similarities with what is known today as "Christianity" even though his religion was well establish centuries before the birth of Jesus (pbuh). The accounts of Krishna's childhood agree quite closely with the apocryphal accounts of Jesus' childhood. In the ancient epic poems, Krishna is simply regarded as a great hero, it was not until about the 4th century BC that he was elevated to the position of a god.
 

Buddha:

Both books mentioned above have compiled a very detailed comparison of the legends of both Jesus (pbuh) and Buddha. The similarities are astounding. T.W. Doane has gone so far as to dedicate an entire chapter to this comparison, including a 48 point side-by-side narration from the time of their birth till the end of their lives on earth. Their conception, birth, mission, miracles, temptation, preaching, worship, prophesies, death, ascension, divinity, judgment of mankind, and many other matters are almost word-for-word exact copies of one another. Dr. Ansari records in his book the following words of the eminent Christian scholar S. M. Melamed:

"Yet the fact remains that Buddhist canons were already known to the Western world before the coming of Jesus. Today hardly any Indologist of note denies the organic connection between the two redemptive religions. So close is the connection between them that even the details of the miracles recorded between Buddhism and Christianity are the same. Of Buddha, too, it was told that he fed five hundred men with one loaf of bread, that he cured lepers and caused the blind to see."

As far back as 1884, a German historian of religion by the name of Rudolph Seydel published a very detailed study demonstrating that all of the tales, miracles, similes, and proverbs of the Christian Bible have their counterparts in the much more ancient Buddhastic gospel.

The author of "Bible Myths" observes that even though Buddha has been elevated today to the position of God, still, Mr. Doane observes that

"There is no reason to believe that he ever arrogated to himself any higher authority than that of a teacher of religion, but as in modern factions, there were readily found among his followers those who carried his peculiar tenets much further than their founder. These, not content with lauding during his life-time the noble deeds of their teacher, exalted him, within a quarter of a century after his death to a place among their deities - worshipping as a god one they had known only as a simple hearted, earnest, truth-seeking philanthropist."

Once again, this conforms exactly to the claim of the Qur'an that God was selecting prophets from every nation on earth (not just the Jews) and sending them to their people (and only to their people) to return them to the true worship of God alone, and that after their departure, their followers would not be content with themselves until they had managed to totally corrupt what their prophet had come to preach to them and even to go so far as to make this prophet himself the object of their pagan worship (see the Qur'an, Fatir (35):24).

Does this mean that Buddha was a true prophet of God? Only God Almighty Himself knows the answer to that question. However, it does appear that there at least exists the possibility that he might have been one of those many thousands of prophets and that his message may have started out as a true message of God which was later changed by mankind.

We have already seen in chapter one how Christian scholars today readily recognize the fact that for the first three decades C.E., "Christianity" remained a sect within Judaism and that the first fifteen Bishops of Christianity were circumcised Jews who worshipped in the synagogues of the Jews. We have seen how it was only after the introduction of Christianity to the Romans and the official "guardianship" of the Roman empire of the religion of Jesus (pbuh) that it began to see many of the "truths" of the mission of Jesus (pbuh) which were hidden from the very first apostles of Jesus (pbuh). We have seen how the "Trinity," the birth of Jesus (pbuh) on the 25th of December, the Easter festival and many other founding doctrines of Christianity were not recognized to be the "truth" until after the religion of Jesus (pbuh) was adopted by those people who for many centuries before that had been spoon fed the doctrines of "Trinity," "savior from sin," "incarnation of the Almighty," "death and resurrection," Christmas and Easter, "three days and three nights in hell," "only begotten of the almighty," "killed by the enemy," and many other matters which were later "inspired" to them by God in order to be "clarified" in the Bible so that they could be seen clearly.

Sadly enough, once all of this detailed evidence has been presented by Western scholars in support of the fact that all of these matters were acts of pagan worship and belief centuries before the coming of Jesus (pbuh), even with all of this, the adamant orthodox will ever manage to find a way out. "It is quite simple really," they will explain, "All of these countless pagan cults from all over the earth must have had prior knowledge of the coming of Jesus and inserted the story of his life into pagan mythology centuries before his actual arrival."

The great and elect messenger of Allah, Jesus the son of Mary (peace be upon them both), is innocent of these pagan innovations which have been foisted upon him after his departure by those who did not fear God. He was a true messenger of God and would never dare to say otherwise. God is One. Period!. He is indivisible and inseparable. There is no God but He. He has no sons nor any equal. He does not hold mankind responsible for the sin of others, but only for their own worship. And God alone shall be the final judge of all of mankind on the Day of Judgment.

There are many other parallels that could be brought up in this comparison. However, we can not get into the details here, therefore, it shall be left up to the interested reader to read about them in the books mentioned above, or in the book "Mohammed A Prophesy Fulfilled," by H. Abdul Al-Dahir, which I recommend highly.